Especially since the federal congress UTOPIA.JETZT in 2020, the BFDK is taking very concrete steps to firmly anchor sustainability as a central issue in the independent performing arts.

For the BFDK, sustainability is a cross-sectional issue. It influences internal processes, dialogue with stakeholders in the independent performing arts and also discussions with our contacts in politics and funding institutions. The seventeen Sustainable Development Goals” formulated by the United Nations provide orientation in terms of what sustainability means. Implementing and consolidating these in the BFDK’s own structures, in its member associations and in the independent performing arts as a whole is a central concern of the BFDK. 

The BFDK checks and adapts how resources are used in its office and its projects. It also provides materials, which encourage and provide instructions for the sustainable use of resources (e.g. the BFDK ECO RIDER), to its members. Through various campaigns, the BFDK raises awareness about the issue and sets processes of change in the independent performing arts and beyond in motion (e.g. with a “change your electricity provider challenge”).   

Many BFDK member organisations are already addressing the issue of sustainability, usually on a voluntary basis; the BFDK seeks to support this effort by providing them with structures and a professional framework.

For its part, the BFDK provides impetus for ecological sustainability. As part of the pilot project “Performing Arts – Performing Future”, it created the “Sustainability Training and Advice Centre”. Against the background of the climate, environmental and resource crisis, this service contributes to making production methods in the independent performing arts more sustainable. In collaboration with “Performing for Future – Netzwerk Nachhaltigkeit in den Darstellenden Künsten” (Performing for Future – the Network for Sustainability in the Performing Arts) and various member organisations, the BFDK also develops and initiates workshops on various aspects of sustainability in the independent performing arts.  

Current projects of the BFDK on sustainability